Card dispensing shoes for dealing or delivering cards in casino card games are known in the art. Without limitation, such card games of chance include 21 or Blackjack, Baccarat, Carribean Stud, Let It Ride, and Poker. The shoe is placed near a dealer's station on a card game table, and at least one deck of cards is placed in an opening at the shoe top during the play of a particular card game. Cards are placed face down in the shoe, and only the back side of the top card in the deck is observable while the cards are in the shoe. The dealer feeds cards for delivery to players at the table by manually engaging and forcing the top card of the deck through a card outlet at the front of the shoe. The dealer pulls the top card from the deck and it is delivered or dealt to a game player or game hand. A series of cards is thus delivered, one-by-one, to the players at the card game table until each player or game hand has the requisite number of cards for playing the game. The shoe remains in view of the dealer and game players, and, absent cheating, neither dealer nor any player is aware of any of the cards value.
Cards for Carribean Stud and Let it Ride are normally dealt from an automatic shuffler or card dispenser (a electronic/mechanical device that physically resembles standard type manual card dispensing shoes). The cards are dealt one-by-one until the requisite number of cards for a game hand are dealt into a tray or receptacle adjacent the mouth of the automatic shuffler or card dispenser. The dealer then removes each game hand from the receptacle and delivers cards in a sequence per game rules to game player(s) and to the dealer, as the player's or the dealer's game hand for the current game round.
Card dispensing shoes for Baccarat differ somewhat from card dispensing shoes for Blackjack in that all Baccarat shoes traditionally have a removable fitted cover; and Blackjack shoes do not. The cover protects cards in the card chute from access by the game player(s), or by the game-designated banker, presently in possession of the shoe. Such shoes contain and secure the game deck before and during removal and delivery of cards comprising the player hand and bank hand, for each game round dealt.
Baccarat is vulnerable to cheating in that many people may come in contact with the playing cards. When playing Baccarat at a Mini-Baccarat table, the dealer acts as Banker and players normally do not touch the cards. But in traditional Baccarat, played at a standard sized Baccarat table, the game player dealing the Player and Bank hands from the shoe for a game round is designated as the Banker. During the game, other game players and the dealer(s) also handle the cards comprising the dealt Player and Bank hands, and thus the game is vulnerable to various forms of cheating by players and unscrupulous casino employees. Prior art shoes do not, for example, provide a mechanical barrier to preclude removing cards from a shoe during times that the rules of the game being played do not allow card removal. A skillful person in possession of the shoe may be able to slightly slide the top card out of the shoe sufficiently to determine suit or value, and then quickly return the card into the shoe, without being observed by others at the game table. A player's a priori knowledge of what the top card (not yet dealt) will be can provide a statistical advantage in placing a large bet on the winning hand for the upcoming game round.
The high betting limits associated with Baccarat games attracts professional card cheats and can tempt unscrupulous players and employees to cheat. Casinos lose tens of millions of dollars annually due to individual cheaters or teams of co-conspirators playing the game of Baccarat. Known methods of cheating in Baccarat include the Banker inadvertently or surreptitiously exposing the top card of the deck to be dealt the Player hand as the first of two cards that will comprise the original Player hand before final wagers have been made by the game players for an upcoming game round. This advance knowledge will permit a player to wager relatively confidently since the value of the top card is illicitly known. Cheat methods also include the Banker and/or game players switching cards dealt from the shoe designated, per game rules, for delivery to the Player hand, or cards designated for delivery to the Bank hand, and visa versa. Cheat methods also include switching cards derived from a source other than the shoe for cards designated for delivery to the Player and/or Bank hands. These illicit activities can allow the Banker and/or confederates to place very high wagers, based upon their prior knowledge of the value of the cards switched or the cards to be dealt to the Player and/or Bank hands from the shoe.
Yet other cheating methods include the Banker covertly altering the delivery sequence of the cards dealt from the shoe. For example, the first card dealt from the shoe, contrary to game rules, is “misdealt” to the Banker instead of the Player hand. This action allows players with knowledge of the “misdeal” to make extremely high wagers without risk of actual loss. This is because casino Baccarat games are routinely video tape recorded and stored for typically at least five days. Thus, a player, with knowledge of “misdeal” whose bets have generated a negative return will challenge the dealer for a misdeal, and will demand that the video tapes be consulted to resolve the issue. Once the video tapes confirm the misdeal, the subsequent bets would be set aside. If necessary, a losing player can ask the Nevada Gaming Control Board to investigate and after confirming the misdeal, order reimbursement of all losses. Of course had the bets turned out favorably, the player(s) would never challenged the “misdeal”.
Yet another Baccarat cheating scheme involves illicitly gaining prior knowledge of the top card of the deck to be dealt to the Player, or of the value of yet unexposed card(s) comprising the Player or Bank hands. Should opportunity or distraction (perhaps created by a cohort) permit, a cheating player may stealthily change or move his/her wager from Player to Bank, or vice versa. In other cheating schemes, unscrupulous employees cooperate with players and steal new and unopened decks of cards from a casino's card inventory, open and illicitly mark the backs of the stolen decks of cards, and then reseal the marked decks, which are returned to the casino's Baccarat card inventory. When eventually the marked cards are brought into play, the employee notifies the co-conspirators who enter into the game play, with a secret ability to read the values on the marked cards, including an ability to read what the first card to be dealt to the Player hand will be.
Using a randomly shuffled Baccarat deck that comprises eight standard fifty-two-card decks of playing cards, a Baccarat player theoretically is expected to win 44.62% of wagers bet on the Player Hands, 45.85% of wagers bet on the Bank Hands, and 9.53% of wagers bet on the Tie Hands. The Player hand has an advantage when the first card dealt to it has a card value of 6, 7, 8, or 9. When the first card dealt to the Player hand has a game card value of 1 (the Ace), 2, 3, 4, 5, or 10, (Jacks, Queens and Kings each have a game card value of 10), the Bank hand has an advantage. In each game round there is an overall probability of approximately 9.50% that the Player and Bank hands will Tie. The probability of a Tie hand is greatest when the first card dealt to the Player hand is a 7, and a Tie hand is least probable when the first card dealt to the Player hand is a 10 valued card, etc.
It will be thus appreciated that if a Baccarat game player somehow gains knowledge of the value of the first game card to be dealt from the shoe before that card is removed from the shoe and delivered to the Player hand, that player can have a significant game advantage. For example, if it is known the first card will be a 6, 7, 8, or 9, a high bet would be placed for the Player hand. If it is known the first card will be an ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 10-valued card, a high bet would be placed for the Bank hand. If it is known the first card will be a 7, a high bet would be placed on the Player hand and/or a Tie bet may be made. Since very substantial wagering often occurs in Baccarat, secret knowledge of the first game card to be dealt to the Player hand is a powerful tool indeed.
Thus, there is a need to provide a host casino with a shoe system that can provide a realtime mechanism for identifying and recording, preferably with 100% accuracy, the card value, card rank, card suit, and sequence in which each card removed from the shoe was delivered to the Player or Bank hands. Further, such shoe system should provide a mechanism to track the wager type (Tie, Player, and/or Bank), and amount per wager made by each Baccarat player. Such shoe system would enable the casino to identify in real time most cheating methods, and to calculate the probability that a Baccarat game player has prior knowledge of the top card of the deck before that card was removed from the shoe. In addition, such shoe system could reduce dealer errors and resultant game disruptions and casino income loss, and could also provide the casino with a software routine that would automatically calculate and display with a high degree of accuracy, commissions payable to the casino on all winning Bank wagers, and could also provide more accurate rating information for Baccarat game players. Such information would allow a casino to more precisely calculate its Earning Potential and Complimentary Equivalency for each game player, and to further speed up the progress of the game, which in the long run will increase casino profits.
There is a need for a shoe that can mechanically bar removal of cards during periods when the rules of the game being played prohibit card removal. Such a shoe could more securely protect the host casino against dealer error and card cheats, while speeding up game play. In Baccarat, such a shoe would guard against errors and cheating with respect to the first card dealt to a player hand, and with respect to the first card advantage associated with that game.
Prior art shoes, automatic card shuffler(s), and card dispensing devices can adequately deliver cards one-by-one to the game players and/or the game dealer, or to a tray or receptacle, but there is room for improvement, especially in a high stake game such as Baccarat. Such shoes do little or nothing to guard against cheating, including recognizing illicit markings on the game cards that can enable identification of the value of the top card(s) in the deck to be dealt from the shoe before placing a wager on the outcome of upcoming game round(s). A player somehow able to read or decipher the value of a card that has been illicitly marked, or who somehow knows what card is next in the shoe and is about to be dispensed can gain valuable statistical knowledge. Using this advance information, such player will know when to wager a large bet on the Player or on the Bank hand, depending upon the player's unique and illicit knowledge of the first card about to be dealt from the shoe and delivered to the Player hand. (The terms “Bank” and “House” may on occasion be referred to interchangeably herein.)
Card dispensing shoes with a scanning unit should preferably monitor and identify the value, rank, suit, and delivery sequence for each card dealt to a game seat, a game player, or a game hand that may include a game dealer, to guard against introduction of a card into a game from a source other than the deck contained in the shoe. Such shoes should ensure that cards have not been illicitly removed from the shoe and/or diverted to an unauthorized game hand by the Banker or the game Caller. Such shoes should further ensure that the cards comprising the Bank hands and Player hands, when tossed to the Caller by the Banker and/or a player have not been switched by the Banker, the Player or the Caller before the respective game hands are faced-up on the game table top layout and the game hand scores are called by the Caller. Further, such shoes should ensure that Player hand cards delivered by the Banker to the Caller are not switched by the Caller before delivery to a player designated to play the Player hand. Such shoes should ensure that the player designated to play the Player hand cannot switch Player hand cards before giving the hand back to the Caller. Thus, shoes should identify changes to the value of the game hand and to the outcome of the game round, in the event any of the original cards dealt from the shoe, regardless of whether the Banker, the Caller, or the designated game player attempts to make the switch without being detected.
There is a need for a shoe that can prevent a person in possession of the shoe from inadvertently or intentionally removing a card from the shoe, and/or surreptitiously exposing the value of the top card to a game player(s) who may then wager on the Player or Bank hand, before commencement of the game round, based on the secret knowledge of what the top card will be. Such shoe should preclude fraudulent activities by players and/or the game dealer(s), as such activities can affect the game outcome and thus the profit margin of the casino or other gaming location hosting the game. In practice, if exposure of a game card becomes know to the gaming casino management, the card is removed from play (burned) or placed in the discard rack, thus altering the sequence of cards comprising game hands for subsequent game rounds dealt from deck(s) contained in the shoe. Such removal of a game card from play can bring concern and anguish among game players and management alike, because of the high bets that may be wagered on the outcome of the game round now affected due to the removal of the exposed card. A player who feels victimized by the circumstances surrounding the exposed card may leave the game, never to return to the host casino.
Thus, there is a need to determine and reduce dealing errors by mechanically blocking the removal of a top card from a shoe during times that rules for the card game being played do not call for the removal or exposure of a card contained in the shoe. Such a mechanical block would preclude cheating by persons skilled in rapidly sliding the top card out of the shoe sufficiently to quickly turn up a corner of the card to learn the card suite or value or both.
Further, there is need for improved display mechanisms for use during the game of Baccarat, especially if it is desired to electronically record individual and cumulative wager types, e.g., Tie, Player or Bank, and/or individual and cumulative bet amounts. Prior art mechanisms are relatively primitive, labor intensive and inaccurate with respect to maintaining a record of each player'bets, wins, losses, for each game round for the duration of each customer's play. There is a need for a mechanism to implement such record keeping and to display results, especially for the dealer's and management's use. Such mechanism could enhance accuracy and speed of posting of commissions collected or owed on winning Bank hands, preferably while increasing the security of the game without forfeiting the number of rounds-dealt-per-hour. Further, there is a need for such mechanism to also record and track pertinent data relevant to rating a customer's play for purposes that include rapidly and accurately determining a casino's earning potential and complimentary equivalency for each game player during real time.
Because of the high betting limits, Baccarat game players tend to receive a relatively high percentage of all complimentary expenditures extended by host casinos. But as noted, it is difficult in the prior art to always guard against cheating in Baccarat. Therefore, a need exists to provide casinos, during real time, with an improved means of recording player rating information, and a real time means to identify most methods of cheating or defrauding the casino card game of Baccarat. Further, there is a need to provide tables on which card games of chance are played with data input mechanisms to permit a dealer to input data relative to the play of the game and the game players, and for display mechanisms to allow the dealer to see game statistics on a per hand and per player basis, and to permit the dealer and management to observe trends suggesting on-going cheating during the play of the game. Further, there is a need to provide remote display mechanisms to allow game supervisors to see game statistics on a per hand and per player and per dealer, and per game table basis, and to permit the game supervisor to observe trends in the play of the game suggesting that one or more game players may be engaged in activities that threaten the assets of the game, and individual player rating information for each game player.
As noted, improved shoe systems can make card games of chance less prone to cheating and to error, and more efficient to play, especially from the casino's standpoint. But there is a need for a mechanism that allows more than a handful of spectators to wager on the outcome of such card games. More specifically, there is also a need for a mechanism by which card games of chance played with improved card shoes and card shoe systems can be broadcast widely over a distribution medium such as the internet such that spectators can view and wager upon the game in real time, precisely as though they were in the casino standing or seated near the actual player participants. Such medium-wide play can further enhance the casino's revenues and can be implemented to provide substantially real time payoffs, be it to the remote viewer bettor, or to the casino.
The present invention provides such improved game shoes, game shoe systems, game play tables,.and a system permitting internet-transmittable transmission of card games of chance played with such shoes and shoe systems, to enable remote viewers to see the game and the scanner output image of each card dealt from the shoe, and to wage bets remotely.
In regards to the Game of Blackjack, it has been known for player's to play according to certain predetermined strategies, each purported to reduce the “edge” the casino has in the game. These strategies are known or are ascertainable inasmuch as many are published. One such technique is known as a card count system where players adhering to the system keep count of one or more values of cards which have been dealt and by simply math can then determine if the remaining inventory of cards left to be dealt from the shoe are such as to give the player a Count System Advantage, i.e. the inventory has been depleted such that the player has a higher probability of being dealt a winning hand (the shoe turns “positive” for the player). In such cases the player would increase their wager to take advantage of the “positive” card inventory and will adhere to certain play strategies such as surrendering, insuring, standing, hitting doubling, or splitting their hand based upon the value of the dealer's face up card, the total of the cards comprising the player's hand; and the true count of the deck remaining in the shoe.
Cheating can also occur by means of an accomplice dealer exposing or otherwise conveying the dealer's face down card to one or more accomplices.
The adherence of a player to a known play strategy can reduce the casino's profit (or expected profit) based upon this player's play. This information or suspicion of a player employing a play strategy heretofore was ascertained by an experienced dealer or game supervisor observing the player's play over a period or time. It would be advantageous to provide a system and method which could provide for an automated analysis of play of one or more players and to provide a signal or alarm when a strategy is suspected. Play according to a strategy may be used to rate the player since such play theoretically may affect the theoretical win from this player and hence could be used in determining the “comps” which should be provided to the player.
To frustrate possible strategy players, if such activity is suspected it is known to command reconstitution and reshuffling of the card inventory. For example, when the dealer first shuffles and loads the shoe, they typically place a marker card in the inventory about one deck from the last card. Cards are dealt from the shoe until the marker card is dealt at which time the current hand is completed. The dealer then gathers all of the cards to reconstitute the inventory to, for example six decks, and re-shuffles to randomize the inventory. The stack of shuffled cards is placed in front of a player who places the marker card in the stack and the stack is cut at the marker card and thereafter is re-loaded back into the shoe. The marker card is placed in the stack about two decks (104 cards) from the last card of the shoe.
As stated above, if there is a suspicion that a player is playing proficiently according to some system or criteria, the pit boss may command more frequent shuffling. Frequent shuffling results in an economic loss to the casino since the time the dealer is reconstituting and re-shuffling interrupts play (and the placement and loss of wagers) and may cause impatient players to leave the table. There is needed a system and method which can assess the strategy and betting proficiency of each of the game players relative to a predetermined Count System Advantage when the system identifies a player as playing at a specific playing strategy and/or betting proficiency commands reconstitution and re-shuffling of the deck when a specific control inventory (“deck”) penetration is achieved. That is, if there are no proficient players playing at the game table, the inventory may be penetrated or depleted, for example, to leave 26 cards remaining in the deck carried by the shoe before reconstitution and re-shuffling the deck thereby maximizing the number of hands dealt-per-shoe without jeopardizing the house or game advantage to any highly skilled card count system player; and whereas if the system detects that one or more highly proficient players are present at the game table the system will search the systems Count System Advantage database and select and automatically reset the house deck penetration rule for the, reconstitution and re-shuffling of the deck that conforms to a deck penetration rule at which the system knows that any game advantage that a player may gain over the house when playing a card count system at a specific proficiency when playing against a specific set of game rules and house deck penetration rule; and when the selected deck penetration is achieved the system, card barriers will raise upon the completion of the current game round forcing the game dealer to remove the deck for the reconstitution and re-shuffling of the deck; and/or an audible or visual alert may be activated to command the dealer to remove the cards remaining in the shoe and re-shuffle more frequently.
In this regard, in Blackjack there may what are referred to as “back counters” who are bystanders (not engaged in the play of the game) counting cards until the deck turns positive and they, the “back counters” then seat themselves and place a wager for the upcoming game round. To prevent the losses that can be inflicted on a game by the. “back counters”, some casinos prevent all players from entering a game mid-shoe. New players must wait until the shoe is being reconstituted and-re-shuffled before entering the game. As can be appreciated, mid-shoe entry is most disadvantageous for the house, and advantageous for the players, when the deck carried by the shoe is positive. In other circumstances a blanket ban on mid-shoe entry may result in a loss of game revenue by turning away players who do not want to wait. There is a need for a system and method which can determine when the shoe is positive (favorable to the player) to signal that new players (possible back counters) cannot now enter the game. Otherwise mid-shoe entry would be permitted.
In still another aspect, it is known to broadcast both live and virtual games over the Internet for live play by remote players at their computer terminals. For particularly live games or virtual games where a virtual inventory of cards, e.g. a simulated shoe of one or more decks is depleted through virtual dealing of cards, there is a risk that the remote player would play a Blackjack card counting system with or without the aid of a computer on which is installed a card counting software program. It would be advantageous in situations where particularly live gaming is being broadcast to be able to determine the likelihood of such activity to either control that player's participation or to command reconstitution and re-shuffling the shoe to prevent the players from obtaining an advantage over the casino.